the quiet world
by hopeintheproles
Summary: Betty wonders about the possibility of a different life. Jughead wonders too.


Polly is never far from her mind. There is an ages old feud between her family and the Blossom's and Polly carries Jason's child. It puts her in a dangerous position and Betty is finding it harder and harder to think of a way to get them both out of their situation unscathed. She wishes she had more resources but she's only sixteen, and there is not much she can do from where she stands. She watches Polly move from place to place and feels fear so keenly in her stomach she loses her breath.

Her mother watches vigilantly, her sharp features constantly assessing and checking for a multitude of signs. Signs that she is starting to slip like Polly. Signs that she is a liability for the family name. Signs that she is not the perfect daughter Alice Cooper has tried so hard to maintain. One can stand so long under a steady stream of pressure before they have to break.

When she sees Archie through her bedroom window she wonders how only a few short months can feel like centuries. He is no longer on her mind, no longer the object of her affections, and even now she feels foolish for subjecting herself to unnecessary torture. She knows they are still friends, but she feels the cord of communication between them starting to thin. She watches him fret over girlfriends and stage fright and no longer feels like they have anything in common.

There is a tall, thin friend who wears a crown on his head who has become her safe place and Betty struggles to remember how it all shifted.

She knows they are all connected, they are all tied together. Like flies caught in a spider's web. But whose web it belongs to, and who the spider is Betty can no longer remember. There is nothing that makes sense, just a crumbling sense of self and a house ravaged by a storm. Her parents have become the enemy and her best friend a mere whisper in her life.

They are shifting pieces on a puzzle board and Betty no longer knows where to step.

"Hey, Betty?"

Inhaling deeply and looking up from her strawberry milkshake Betty looks across the table into the concerned eyes of Forsythe Pendleton Jones III. His brows are furrowed, but these days, they usually are. Betty doesn't know as much as she ought to about his life, and she feels a measure of guilt and shame at not probing enough into the details of his whereabouts.

He was homeless, and she had been so wrapped up in her life and dragging him into her own messy affairs that she hadn't even noticed.

She knows they are a team. But even still she feels she has tipped the scales towards her own side.

"Sorry, Jughead. Were you saying something?"

He has closed the lid of his laptop, an empty plate sits next to it. She is more than happy to sit with him while he works on his novel, her own homework in front of her, barely touched. It's hard to stay focused these days.

"No."

He shakes his head, his hands close on the table in front of hers.

"You just seem, a little lost in thought. Care to share what's on your mind?"

Tilting her head to the side and closing her eyes briefly Betty wonders how he can know her so well.

"Just, more of the same, you know? I don't know how to stop thinking about it. It doesn't seem to do any good."

She can see his fingers twitch, as if he is eager to reach out and grab her hands but is too afraid to make a move. So she does it for him, reaching out and grabbing onto his hands.

He holds her hands tight, his rough, calloused fingers intertwining with hers and Betty stares down at them, smiling slightly.

When she looks back up the look in his eye is something she is having a hard time deciphering. His gaze is intent, that much she knows.

"Wouldn't it be nice," Betty starts, leaning forward against the table, hugging their hands closer to her, "If we could just be kids, at Pop's, on a date? No pressure, no fighting parents-"

"No murderers and town rivalries?" Jughead finishes, a small smile playing at his lips.

Betty's smiles fades a bit before it perks back up.

"You would pick me up in a horribly beaten up car, some awful fixer-upper FP would have gotten you for your birthday. You'd never know day to day whether it would start or not."

Jughead lets out a light laugh at that, his grin lighting up his face in a way she hasn't seen for quite some time. But he catches on quickly and fills in the storyline.

"The drive-in wouldn't have shut down, I'd take you there every Friday and I'd show you all my favorite movies. But we'd always change it up though, one weekend it would be The Jerk. And the next it would be Casablanca."

Smiling at the thought Betty tightens her grip on him, feeling giddy at the images in her head.

"And on very special occasions we'd go to my place and watch sappy romances that you hate but indulge from time to time. Polly's there too, with Jason. And my parents are on an extremely potent daily dosage of valium."

They both laugh at that, happy to indulge in the make-believe for a time while they can. While it's there, because there are shadows lurking around every corner. But for now, Betty thinks it's nice to see a smile of his face instead of his perpetual frown, because life is too hard for the boy with the weight of the world on his shoulders.

"You wanna go for a walk?" Betty asks.

Nodding his head, Jughead packs up his stuff into his bag and they both shrug on their coats.

Walking outside first, the night is cold but clear. There is no rain tonight and Betty is happy to feel Jughead's hand steadfast in hers.

Walking beside him, she implores him.

"Keep going Juggie. I wanna hear a little bit more."

Pulling her hand from his he wraps it around her shoulder and tugs her in close. Betty chooses to wrap her arm around his waist under his coat, and places her hand on where he is narrowest but strong.

She feels like a kid again, listening to her favorite stories read aloud. But he is a natural writer, and has a way with words that soon have her under his spell.

"It wouldn't always be perfect. Nothing ever is, you'd still have fights with your mom and I'd still be an unpopular outcast, but me, my mom, FP, and Jellybean would all be back together again, back in the old house. On the weekends I'd go out with JB and help her build her vinyl collection and take her to Pop's. You'd come along too, she'd try and argue with you about your horrible taste in music."

Betty lets out a fake gasp of outrage and Jughead chuckles against her temple, pressing a light kiss to the skin there.

"Do you remember the old house?" He asks, and Betty nods against him.

"Whenever you and your mom would get in a fight you'd sneak out and tap on my window, ask if you could stay the night."

Betty smiles into his shoulder at the thought, "And what would we do all night, Mr. Jones?" She asks, a teasing flirtatiousness in her voice.

"Oh, I wouldn't let you in. It wouldn't be proper."

Betty laughs loudly into the silent night and his sounds of laughter ring out and mingle with hers. It's the sweetest music Betty has ever heard.

"Ah, yes, always the virtuous one."

The pair walk in silence for a bit before she feels his grip tighten on her, they are walking in no particular direction, but she can see the school up ahead.

"It would be nice, wouldn't it?" He states, and Betty looks up at him as he comes to a halt in front of her.

"What would be nice?" She asks.

His hands come up to lightly grip the side of her face and Betty looks up into his troubled eyes. His voice is soft when he speaks.

"To be with you whenever I wanted, without any of the fear. To be able to hold you at night."

The look on his face is so strikingly sad Betty feels a twist in her gut, as if it is his fault that the circumstances of their lives are so grim. There is very little light at the end of the tunnel but she can't stand to see him looking at her like that, so she steps closer and settles her hands under his coat once again.

"No matter what, I'm with you." She reassures him, "And as far as holding me at night goes, I'm sure we could work something out one of these days."

His smile is fond, and they both meet in the middle to press their lips against each other.

Most of their kisses up to this point have been chaste and sweet, neither time nor confidence on their side but now it feels different to her.

He embraces her with nothing short of urgency, she can feel it in the way he comes to grip her against him. His arms have wrapped around her and her hands crawl up the space of his back, feeling the muscles twitch in response.

There is so much going on around them at all times it hardly seems like they both have time to be the teenagers they both feel much older than. But now, now when there is no immediate disaster to take care of or plan to plot, she can sigh into his mouth and feel him open up to her. His lips are full against her and they coax small moans out of her he has never heard before.

If possible she presses herself even closer to him as their tongues tangle and retreat, back and forth, time and time again. The noises he makes against her are sinful and surprising, the two so rarely have time to act their age, and Betty wants to make more time if this is what it entails.

Her skin has become electric as his hands pass over her, this is nothing short of what she wants for the two of them. This base need and urgency not driven by murder or family members, but something selfish, for herself.

His large hands span the length of her neck and Betty shivers in his arms, pressing her lips against his once more and slipping her tongue into the wet heat of his mouth.

Feeling a choked groan against her lips she feels one hand slide to the back of her neck as he detaches himself from her lips and presses kisses against the soft skin of her neck. Betty can only reach up and tangle her hands in his hair as she angles her neck against him, gasping at the sensations of his open-mouthed kisses on her overheated skin.

But eventually, their urgency grips them both less and less and the two exchange a series of small pecks against the other.

Sighing and closing her eyes she presses her forehead against his.

"Wow." She is only able to mutter, still feeling dazed at the intensity of their kiss.

She feels him let out a breath against her, nodding his head in agreement.

"Yeah. Wow."

Opening her eyes she is happy to see the dazed look reflected back at her, it seems as though his eyes are filled with stars, and she loves that she gets to see him like this - giddy and carefree when to others he is always sardonic and brooding.

They are both about to continue walking towards Betty's house when she grips him suddenly by the lapels of his coat.

"Hey Juggie?" She blinks up at him, serious once again. But it needs saying.

He nods and swallows, waiting for her to speak.

"I need you to know that I'm not living in that fantasy world. I know how things really are, what people are really like. It was nice to indulge in that moment of 'for the way things could have been' but I want you to know that I'm here. With you. And that's enough for me."

His stare is intense, and she wonders if these are the words that he's needed to hear for some time now. She swears she can see his eyes mist over but in a blink it is gone before he is gripping the back of her head and pressing his lips against hers once more.

He says nothing, he doesn't need to.

The pair resume their walk towards Betty's house and she wears the slight grin on her face for the remainder of the night.

She is not living in the world of make-believe, she knows the way the world is working right now. But whatever happens, she knows that in due time, she'll be able to carve away a piece of the fantasy and make it real. It is what they are owed. It belongs to them.

It is all she really wants, in the end. A quiet world of their own making.


End file.
